I came across statistics published in the July/August 2015 edition of Mother Jones that left me wanting to laugh and cry simultaneously. Certainly, I was reminded of the British comedy, The Mouse That Roared, starring Peter Sellers. Sellers played thae prime minister of the duchy of Grand Fenwick, a 10th world state that decides, rather than go bankrupt, it would declare war on the United States, surrender, and take advantage of America’s largess to help them rebuild the economy.
The notion isn’t far-fetched. That’s how we became friends with Japan. That worked out so well, we followed suit with the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II and have repeated this munificence through countless wars ever since, from Granada to Yemen. In fact, if we look closely at this strategy we may discover we’ve even made a major contribution to ISIS efforts to establish a Caliphate in the Middle East. That’s where I shed a few tears. Here’s a record of what our largess has bought us, courtesy of “Missing in Action,” by Al Vicens. (Mother Jones, July/Augut, 2015, pg. 13.)
Afghanistan: 40% of the 475,000 weapons sent to Afghanistan can’t be traced.
Libya: 20% of weapons sent to Libya went to Islamic militants.
Somalia: The United Nations reports half the weapons given to fight al-Shabaab have been sold off by unpaid troopers and landed in the hands of the militants.
Iraq: 30% of weapons supplied by the United States to Iraqi forces between 2004 and 2007 have been lost. Some of these weapons have been found in the hands of Shiite militias.
Yemen: When the Yemini government collapsed, some $500 million worth of small arms and gear went missing, presumed to be in the hands of the rebels.
The mouse has roared and roared and roared. And some of you still think fiction doesn’t tell the truth.
Courtesy of yahoo.com
